SYW142 – Plan Your Year: Step Two

Welcome to Scrapbook Your Way, the show that explores the breadth of ways to be a memory keeper today. I’m your host, Jennifer Wilson, owner of Simple Scrapper and author of The New Rules of Scrapbooking.

This is episode 142.

In this episode the Planning Party continues with companion audio for pages 5 and 6 of the 2022 Your Way Workbook. If you're just getting started make sure to listen to episode 141 for all the details.

Alright, let's dive in with something brand new.

Over the years I've shared a number of ways to capture and prioritize your scrapbooking ideas, but I'd never quite found a strategy that was successful at bringing together various types of projects.

The things we do in scrapbooking can be lumped into two main categories: creative and administrative. Creative projects are what we typically think of as scrapbooking. It's the stuff you make. It's the layouts and spreads and mini books and travel albums and more.

Administrative projects are everything else, the stuff that can sometimes distract you from the creative projects or the stuff that keeps getting put aside for later. So this can be scanning photos, organizing supplies, developing a photo workflow, learning a new skill, sorting memorabilia, and so much more.

While you likely want to spend more of your time on the creative parts, it's important to make those routine and one-time administrative tasks a priority so that you have memories to work with and can feel a sense of order in your creative process.

We're going to bring this all out with a Brain SIFT. SIFT stands for Start, Improve, Finish, and Try.

Go box by box and list the projects that come to mind. There's no need to prioritize yet. Just jot down what comes to mind when you think about Starting, Improving, Finishing, or Trying.

You might notice that some boxes are more full than others. That's a clue to observe, but don't worry too much about it. The goal of the Brain SIFT is to capture a well-rounded list of projects you might want to work on in 2022.

Press pause here if you'd like to complete page 5 before moving on.

And now, page 6. You might want to write in pencil or print out a second copy. It's time to make some choices.

To begin, you're going to turn back to page 5 and circle the creative projects. The rest should be administrative.

Now you're going to choose the 5-6 creative projects that would like to work on in 2022, if time allows. Don't worry about ranking them, just decide what makes the cut and what doesn't. Consider how excited you are to work on the project as well as how important it feels to you.

Then, do the same with your administrative projects, choosing 3-4 for that section. Think about which items you would feel happy and satisfied to have done a year from now.

And that's it. Today we went from everything to some of the things. On Friday I'll take you the final leg of this journey, to deciding when you'll spend time on each project and what might not make the cut after all.

In the meantime, make sure you join us Thursday evening at 6pm central on Zoom for The Big Reveal, all of our announcements about 2022 at Simple Scrapper as well as our prize drawing. Plus, don't forget to check out the replays of Monday's kickoff event as well as Tuesday's Book Club announcement. You can find all the details at simplescrapper.com/plan.

And as always, remember that you have permission to scrapbook your way.